The Progress of Education Reform: Career/Technical Education PDF - This issue of the Progress of Education Reform identifies new approaches states are adopting to support career-readiness for students. (Jennifer Dounay Zinth, ECS, February 2013)...

The Relationship Between Education and Work Credentials - Using data from the Census Bureau's Survey of Income and Program Participation, NCES determined that one in five adults report having a work credential, defined as occupational licenses and certifications. Of these credentialed adults, 71 percent report their most recent credential is a license; 29 percent said it is a certification. Work credential rates generally increase with education level. (National Center for Education Statistics, June 2015)...

Engaging Employers as Customers: How Education and Business Can Join Forces to Boost Success for All - Educators and employers often seem to speak different languages, with different goals in mind. But when it comes to preparing people for work, they have the same objective — helping learners gain the skills and opportunities they need in order to succeed in the workplace. This brief highlights strategies for building effective employer-educator partnerships to increase college and career success for underprepared youth and adults. (Jobs for the Future, May 2015)...

Not as Hard as You Think: Engaging High School Students in Work-Based Learning - Intended to allay concerns about perceived barriers to young people’s access to workplaces, this brief highlights the successes of employers who have opened their doors to high school students. Employers who have found ways to provide young people with meaningful work experiences are profiled and case studies highlight ways these employers have managed the logistics of work-based learning. (Charlotte Cahill and Sheila Jackson, Pathways to Prosperity Network, May 2015)...

Revisiting Apprenticeships - While the word "apprenticeship" may conjure up images of medieval craft guilds, this brief posits the concept is gaining currency in the United States. Some community colleges are partnering with businesses to fill jobs that may not require a full four-year degree. Four-year institutions can also do more to partner with employers to determine skill needs and develop curricula to meet the demands of the workforce. (American Council on Education, April 2015)...

Credentials for All: An Imperative for SREB States - To double the number of young adults who hold a credible credential or degree by age 25, this report offers eight actions states can take, including: align college readiness academics and challenging technical studies through real-world assignments, engage students in career guidance starting in the middle grades, allow high school students to learn in settings that put them on the fast track to earn advanced industry credentials and college credits. (SREB Commission on Career and Technical Education, April 2015)...

New Pathways to Careers and College: Examples, Evidence, and Prospects - Different programs and approaches to high school career and college preparation programs described in this brief have core principles: pathways keep students' options open, pathway choice is up to students and parents, students get personal support, curriculum is integrated,applications are real, there are employer partnerships and work-based learning. They also have collaboration with postsecondary and district support. (Mary G. Visher and David Stern, MDRC, April 2015)...

The State of Career Technical Education: Employer Engagement in CTE - A survey of state directors of CTE programs to better understand how employers are involved with CTE offers ways to improve employer engagement. Common facets include using Carl D. Perkins CTE monies, leveraging state policies and programs by collaborating with state economic or workforce development agencies and engaging employers in development or review of state CTE standards. Most directors felt employer engagement was increasing and would continue to do so. (National Association of State Directors of Career Technical Education Consortium, December 2014)...

Opportunities and Options: Making Career Preparation Work for Students - While states have focused on graduating college-ready students, this report turns its attention to career-readiness. States are encouraged to make high school programs more responsive to the labor market by enlisting the employer community as partners, and to expand accountability systems to emphasize career readiness. (CCSSO, November 2014)...

Expanding Apprenticeship Opportunities in the United States - A robust apprenticeship training program could reduce youth unemployment, improve the transition from school to career, upgrade skills, raise wages of young adults, strengthen a young worker's identity, increase U.S. productivity, achieve positive returns for employers and workers, and use limited federal resources more effectively. So argues this brief, seventh in a series of 14 proposals offering evidence-based strategies for combating poverty in the United States. (Robert I Lerman, The Hamilton Project at Brookings, 2014)...

Creating Pathways to Prosperity: A Blueprint to Action - In the spring of 2013, a conference at Harvard considered the design of quality career pathways systems spanning grades 9-14. Summaries and recommendations from that conference, "Creating Pathways to Prosperity," constitute this report. Key elements required to build and maintain a quality career pathways system are: career information and guidance; curriculum development and teacher training; effective intermediary organizations; engaged employers; supportive federal and state policies. The project has become a movement which now is in 10 states. (Ronald F. Ferguson and Sara Lamback, Harvard Graduate School of Education, June 2014)...

Making Career Readiness Count - Guidance and recommendations for states on how they can take steps in the next few years to ensure that the “career” in their college- and career-ready accountability and public reporting system is not an afterthought. Rather it should be a lever to focus priorities, drive progress, and ultimately see more students, and their communities, succeed. (Kate Blosveren, Marie O'Hara and Cory Curl, Achieve and the National Association of State Directors of Career Technical Education Consortium, May 2014)...

CTE Works! 2014 Results from a National Survey - Ninety percent is the graduation rate for CTE seniors, compared to the national rate of 75 percent; 85 percent of the CTE students plan on going to college, according to a survey of about 51,000 students and 900 teachers. A third said they’d gotten the chance to earn college credit, a certificate, or a degree for their CTE work. However, CTE teachers said their programs face funding challenges. (ACTE, March 2014)...

Data Point: Trends in CTE Coursetaking - The average number of Career and Technical Education (CTE) credits earned by public high school graduates declined from 1990 to 2009 (from 4.2 to to 3.6) while the number of credits earned in other areas--English, math, science,and social studies--increased. However, within occupational CTE, participation increased in communications and design, health care, public services, and consumer and culinary services, while participation in business, manufacturing, computer and information sciences, engineering technologies, and repair and transportation dropped. (NCES, November 2013)...

The Future of College and Career Pathways - Educators and administrators were surveyed by the NC3T to learn about the current state of pathways programs and their futures. From those surveyed-which may not be nationally representative-they found the percentage of students participating in pathways programs appeared to be growing, and most programs had not suffered drastic cuts in the past three years. (NC3T, July 2013)...

National Standards of Practice for Career Academies - There are many interpretations of what a career academy is and what a high quality academy should look like, as well as many instances where the term “career academy” is used to describe other configurations. To address these concerns, a broad group of organizations supportive of career academies came together to develop this set of ten standards, first issued in 2004 and updated in 2013. (University of California at Berkeley, April 2013)...

How Career and Technical Education Can Help Students Be College and Career Ready: A Primer - Preparing students for a more complex future, modern CTE pathways must ensure that coursework involves applied, contextual learning so students can see the relevance of their studies, and a relationship to their goals, according to this report. Evolving into an academically rigorous course of study, CTE now is seen as preparation for both college and careers. States can move CTE along by providing alternative certification options for industry experts to become CTE instructors, professional development for current and would-be CTE instructors, and soliciting feedback from workforce stakeholders. (Betsy Brand, Andrew Valent and Andrea Browning, AIR, March 2013)...

A Framework for Measuring Career Pathways Innovation: A Working Paper - In the process of developing a common understanding of what high-quality career pathway systems look like regardless of targeted industry, occupation or design, the authors provide information on the types of metrics that can be used in career pathways and how they can be used. Many, they say, will be useful for continuous improvement. (Center for Postsecondary and Economic Success at CLASP, February 2013)...

Education to Employment: Designing a System that Works - The authors studied education-to-employment programs in nine countries and found that among the most successful, employers and educators regularly checked in with each other; also, employer commitment to students began before enrollment. (Mona Mourshed, McKinsey Center for Government, December 2012)...

The Road Less Traveled: Realizing the Potential of Career Technical Education in the California Community Colleges - This report examines four high-wage, high-need career pathways in the California Community Colleges as a basis for exploring the Career Technical Education (CTE) mission and its role in the college completion agenda. The study found that while CTE has the potential to meet the state’s completion, workforce and equity goals, there is a lack of priority on awarding technical certificates and degrees and an absence of clear pathways for students to follow in pursuing those credentials. (Institute for Higher Education Leadership and Policy, February 2011)...

Pathways to Prosperity: Meeting the Challenge of Preparing Young Americans for the 21st Century - This report argues that our national strategy for education and youth development has been too narrowly focused on an academic, classroom-based approach. Meanwhile, many other advanced industrial nations are succeeding with a broader, more holistic approach that places greater emphasis on career and technical education and work-based learning. The authors contend that in order to regain the educational leadership we held for more than a century, the United States must build a more comprehensive network of pathways to serve youth in high school and beyond. (Harvard Graduate School of Education, February 2011)...

Measuring Technical and Academic Achievement: Employer/Certification Examinations' Role in High School Assessment - To assist states in identifying potential alternative examinations, SREB reviewed and evaluated more than 200 employer certification examinations, using stringent criteria. In total, 177 examinations are recommended for approval, 86 of which are recommended without reservation and 91 which are recommended on a provisional basis. The full report contains a brief description of and observations about the nature of these examinations. (Southern Regional Education Board, November 2009)...

Ready for Tomorrow: Six Proven Ideas to Graduate and Prepare More Students for College and 21st-Century Careers - Evidence from SREB's High Schools That Work initiative confirms that more students can be prepared for postsecondary opportunities - college, advanced career training or both - when schools combine rigorous academics, authentic projects and assignments in academic and career/technical classes and guidance and extra help. This report identifies six clear-cut conditions that schools can create in their career-focused programs of study to increase students' college and career readiness. (Gene Bottoms, Marna Young and Lingling Han, Southern Regional Education Board, November 2009)...

States Have Broad Flexibility in Implementing Perkins IV - Perkins IV established student performance measures at the secondary and postsecondary levels for state agencies. The Government Accountability Office surveyed the career and technical education (CTE) directors in each state and the District of Columbia on: (1) how states have implemented those performance measures and the challenges they faced in implementation; (2) the extent to which the U.S. Department of Education has held oversight to the performance measures and supported the state efforts; and (3) the U.S. Department's analysis of the effectiveness of CTE programs. (U.S. Government Accountability Office, July 2009)...